


Sacrificial Rites

by marzanna



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Begging, Bondage, Dom/sub, Dominant Bottom, Frottage, Jealousy, M/M, Power Play, Praise Kink, Scent Kink, Sex Pollen, Teasing, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:28:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24006628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marzanna/pseuds/marzanna
Summary: The spring equinox brings with it a latent, ancient magic, a thing buried deep in the earth. It stands to reason that the cikavac may have tapped into it, befouling Geralt in more ways than one.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 29
Kudos: 455





	Sacrificial Rites

It starts when Jaskier hears, in the near distance, something like a cannon firing.

Well, if he were to think about it, actually, it starts some time before, in a little spit of a village to the north of the Temerian capital. Theirs is but a humble farming community, and it smells the part, which Jaskier reminds Geralt of. Frequently. But the air’s tinged with the smell of smoke, too, and the snow-dusted trees that knot themselves through the village are adorned with bright, multicolored muslin ribbons. Jaskier thumbs some of them as he passes by.

Their coin purses are light, and there’s always something, somewhere, in need of slaying, and when a stream of young girls brushes past them, boughs clustered in their hands like bouquets, Jaskier suspects all he’ll have to do is join in whatever festivities are at hand and he’ll drum up work for them in no time. And by “them”, of course, he means Geralt. But that’s not the part he says out loud.

True enough, it takes just one bawdy song about Geralt’s prowess at ghoul-slaying and lady-killing for someone in the local tavern to recognize him. A puffy-eyed man, calls himself something Jaskier can’t parse. Or pronounce. But his coin’s good, and Jaskier’s not yet had occasion to sing about the creature he describes - a _cikavac_ , heavy on the sibilants; a gangling, bird-like thing that’s stealing the milk from their cows and the honey from their hives.

Jaskier lets out a laugh. “Really? And what exactly does a great big bird want with cow’s milk, anyway?”

“Not for eating,” says the man, tugging at his mustache. His voice has a heavy accent, like the words are punched out of his mouth. “Cikavac works for someone. Maybe in another village, maybe someone here. Takes the milk back to them.”

“Glorified theft,” Geralt mutters.

“Well, what’s the bird get out of it, then? If it were up to me, I’d rather get to fly around, and sing, and, er, whatever else it is birds get up to. Preening? That sounds nice.”

“That’s all you do anyway,” says Geralt, face stony, and he steers Jaskier away from the tavern by his shoulder.

They almost bump into a woman and her children just outside. Jaskier shimmies past them, narrowly avoiding trodding on their embroidered skirts. “I’m deeply offended, Geralt,” he laments with a hand over his heart. “I’ll have you know, I’m a man of many skills and talents. Like… Oh! You wouldn’t happen to have any cherries on hand, would you?”

“No,” Geralt says, like this is obvious.

“More’s the pity. I’ve got this fascinating trick of the tongue, you know. Lets you tie a knot in a cherry stem, no hands necessary. I picked it up from some ladies in Novigrad.”

Geralt turns his head back to look at him, eyebrows raised, but doesn’t dignify that with a response. Doesn’t say much the rest of the afternoon, either. All Jaskier can squeeze out of him is a rudimentary description of the thing - gawky, uncomfortably humanoid, and bearing a long, narrow beak with a fleshy pouch where it keeps its spoils. “Like a pelican,” Jaskier supplies helpfully to no one but himself.

There are preparations to be made, but Jaskier doesn’t pay them much attention. More interesting is the smoke, growing thicker as they approach the outskirts of the village. _Lot of torches for the middle of the day,_ he thinks, until they resolve themselves as effigies of cloth and straw, bedecked in dried husks and rudimentary skirts to give them the shape of a woman. Jaskier’s mouth closes mid-word.

“Oh, that’s alright, then,” he starts up again, “they’re just setting a bunch of little girls on fire. No big deal. And— and then putting them out again. Sure. Seems a little counterproductive!” His voice breaks on the last word, coming out unnaturally loud. A handful of people glance his way.

“Don’t be rude,” grunts Geralt. “Not looking to get chased out of town before I get paid.”

“Geralt of Rivia, telling _me_ not to be rude? My goodness. I guess I must be rubbing off on you.”

Most of the participants gather around a creek that splits the town from the thicket. They cross its shallow waters between a group of boys taking turns to toss their own straw dolls into it.

Back to their familiar rites: gathering herbs, laying traps, establishing a stakeout. Jaskier’s gotten quite good at it by now. He sings while he works, mindless things about sad women with lush black hair, so thick you could drown in it. Geralt tells him to knock it off. It only encourages him to give Geralt a winning smile as he cooks up another verse.

They’ve got a nice little vantage point where the valley swells up into rolling hills, affording a decent view of the— of the—

“Geralt, what’d that alderman call himself?”

The witcher looks up from where he’s crushing seeds in a mortar. “ _Zduhać_.”

He mouths the word silently, and finds it cumbersome. Of Zduhać’s farmstead, then, where he’s kindly left his prized goat tied up this night for them to use as bait—

“It’s a title,” continues Geralt. Jaskier blinks at him, surprised. “Means something like ‘dragon man’.”

Of _the_ zduhać’s farmstead, then. Glad they got that sorted out. “So, what, am I to believe that that old man killed a dragon? He didn’t seem much for that kind of thing. A bit too much gout, if you ask me.”

“That’s not what it means.”

Jaskier waits for a moment, but Geralt just keeps pounding his pestle.

“And what, pray tell, does it mean?” he asks at last, as he crosses one leg over the other and rests his hands on his knee. Geralt keeps silent in a way that Jaskier has come to interpret as 'I don’t know, so don’t ask'.

Now, they wait. And wait. Geralt keeps his eyes peeled, as sharp as ever, but sometime after the moon rises high in the sky, Jaskier’s fingers stop strumming quite so fast. The air’s balmy and supple, ripe with moisture and the burgeoning tumescence of countless plants, and he finds himself nodding off.

Jaskier comes to all at once when he hears, in the near distance, something like a cannon firing.

He clambers to his feet, against all reason, really, because the last thing he should do is make himself a bigger target for - for whatever that was from. His lantern’s been put out, enveloping the forest in darkness, and he is suddenly aware that he is alone.

“Geralt?” he calls out to the trees. His voice warbles in a way he doesn’t like.

There’s no response, but he’s sure that sound came from this way. Or maybe it was that way? Jaskier may be no witcher, what with those keen senses and all, but he is clever enough to follow the shuffling and rustling in the trees until he’s sure he isn’t just hearing things. It’s not until he’s well and truly lost track of where he started from that he stumbles through a cluster of flowering bushes, and with it, Geralt.

What he should say is something like “Geralt!”, or _“Geralt!”_ , or even “Thank goodness you’re alright!”, but instead what he says is, “Lords have mercy, you’re filthy,” because his eyes have a direct feed to his mouth that bypasses his brain entirely. Geralt’s hunched over and trying in vain to clean his face, covered as he is from head to toe in a translucent, yellowy slime. So is everything else in a ten foot radius.

Geralt spits. “No shit.”

“What’s— what in the world happened to you?” He steps forward gingerly in an attempt to avoid the mess.

“Damned thing. It ate one of my pouches.”

Jaskier draws upon his dabbling knowledge of witchery and alchemy to come to the conclusion that something inside it didn’t play nice with the cikavac’s insides. And now its insides appear to be its outsides. “Well, you’re not hurt, are you? Not missing any limbs, from what I can see.”

“You’ll put me out of a job with observational skills like those,” says Geralt, unimpressed. He wrings a thick glob out of his hair.

All that’s left of the poor beast is its beak, glossy, orange, and befouled with the same stuff. Jaskier lets Geralt pick it up himself. They can’t go back to town looking like this, or at least Geralt can’t, as Jaskier kindly reminds him. There’s a secluded bank downstream from the villagers and their celebrations. It’ll have to do.

This, too, is another thing Jaskier’s gotten good at over the years. Scrubbing Geralt clean, that is. He knows which oils to keep on hand to best maintain Geralt’s hair, which salves to apply to all the places Geralt can’t reach, and which temperature Geralt likes the best when they’ve got a choice in the matter. Things that should be degrading. Beneath a man of his stature. ‘Should’ isn’t often found in his vocabulary, however.

His fingers knead through Geralt’s hair to coax the last of the slime out of it. It has an odd texture, not unlike a whisked egg, although he’s to understand it’s just a foul mixture of honey, milk, and assorted intestinal fluids. Muscle memory takes over. The rote nature of it quiets a buzzing in him. It’s the same buzz that makes him turn rhymes over in his head, over and over, keeping him from a good night’s sleep unless he’s worn out or fucked out. Hence his predilection for the finer things in life - wine, women, washing.

Geralt’s kind of like a cat, Jaskier thinks idly, how he leans into the firm drag of Jaskier’s fingernails against his scalp. It’s hard to beat back a smile. Those eyes of his, normally beady slits, balloon in the bright moonlight. Jaskier pushes down on his shoulders to get him to submerge himself. He goes easily, lingering under the surface for a moment, where his silver hair hangs suspended around him in a filmy cloud. Then he bursts back through the surface like a quenched sword, hot and steaming.

Maybe there was something to those foreign rituals after all.

* * *

Geralt pushes his way through the throng in the tavern, and he sweats. They don’t part for him like people instinctively tend to. There’s just too many people packed into too small a place, and they’re all dancing or singing or pounding back ale. Makes the air feel stale and hot. Jaskier separates from him, claiming that the people are in need of his many talents. Fine by him. This was more of Jaskier’s scene, anyway. All Geralt wants to do is find that alderman and collect his pay.

He considers asking around, but finds his mouth too dry. In truth, an ale doesn’t sound that bad, either.

“Witcher,” he hears, picking it out of the crowd. Then the zduhać pops up at his side. “You come back with good news?”

As an answer, Geralt presents the cikavac’s beak. That’s good enough, it seems, for the old man takes it and raises it high, with a call to celebration that sparks the whole of the tavern to cheer for him in turn. Geralt’s mouth flattens. Discomfort aside, the pouch he gets in exchange is heavy with gold and silver, and that’s more gratifying than any kind of adulation.

Things could be worse. Women ply him with drink, which he readily accepts. They pour it from jugs with odd black masses at the bottom. Geralt drinks deep. It’s cool, vaguely earthy, and bites at his tongue. He presses his metal tankard to his face afterward. It’s of little help.

Food, too, comes his way. Lumpy dumplings, roasted meats, pickled fruits, all blooming with rich, vivid scents, bordering on overwhelming. He supposes he should say no to all these precious things, but the men around him are insistent. In the end, Geralt has to admit he’s more ravenous than he’s been in a dog’s age. He tears into a leg of goat, and its juices run down his jaw.

When Geralt looks up, Jaskier’s not hard to spot. He’s in his element, fingers dancing across the strings of his lute, already having composed a song about Geralt’s heroic triumph against the thieving cikavac. Geralt mostly tunes it out; instead, it’s his eyes that get drawn in, strangely transfixed. Jaskier’s beaming. His hair’s damp with sweat. He’s pressed close against a gaggle of women, and he’s smiling at them, and he _winks_ at them, and Geralt doesn’t notice his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists until he hears a sharp crack - the wooden handle of his knife’s split right down the middle.

A good moment passes before he lets it clatter to the table.

Sweat continues to bead on Geralt’s forehead, and he swipes it away with more frustration than is warranted. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he’s been poisoned. His brow furrows in thought. Maybe he had been poisoned. But why? What’s the motive? And more importantly, how would some backwoods villager get their hands on a potent enough poison to phase a witcher?

Suspicion clouds his judgment. He’s got to get Jaskier, get them out of here, or at least get them back to their room so he can breathe right again, and he’s out of his seat and shoving his way through the crowd before he finishes the thought. A curious smell in the air grows stronger.

As he approaches, Jaskier catches his eye. “Geralt,” he calls out, wrenching himself away from his admirers with some effort.

Something hits him like a wall - sulfur, earthy vetiver, and the distinct honeyed tang of neroli. _That scent must be coming from him,_ he realizes. Geralt opens his mouth. Then he lingers there, unable to get out much more than Jaskier’s name in turn. His mind’s gone blank. He smells… good. Really good.

Slowly, Jaskier’s face falls. “You alright? You’re looking,” he starts, uncertain. It’s disquieting. “Peaky?”

“We need to leave.”

He casts a longing gaze towards a group of young ladies, and Geralt feels his teeth grind. “Leave? But the party’s just getting started!”

“Leaving. Now,” growls Geralt. He grabs Jaskier’s wrist and starts pulling him towards the exit.

“Hey, hey, hey! Hold on just a moment— Geralt!” Jaskier sputters and trips over his own feet in an attempt to match his pace. “I’m going to drop my lute!”

The distress in his voice is so sincere that it startles Geralt into letting him go. To Jaskier’s credit, he shoulders it onto his back, then keeps following of his own accord.

Behind him, he hears Jaskier say, “And I’ve not had anything to eat, let me just…” Then there’s a clinking and clattering, presumably his absconding with some of the finer things laid out on the tables. Geralt makes for their room anyway.

Theirs is small, with two roughshod straw beds crammed into the corners and a wooden washtub propped upright against a wall. Faint notes of hay and sheep linger, but it’s difficult to pick them out from under Jaskier’s scent, all the more oppressive in close quarters. Geralt takes a deep, shuddering breath. Bad idea. Makes his head swim.

“Quaint,” murmurs Jaskier. He’s got his arms full of food, so he kicks the washtub over and uses its underside as a makeshift table.

Geralt wipes his face again. The air’s no fresher in here than out there, and his skin prickles with heat. “Something’s wrong with me,” he mutters.

“You don’t say.”

“This isn’t a joke, Jaskier! Someone might have poisoned the food,” Geralt snaps, gesturing to the sweet roll Jaskier’s tearing pieces off of.

The suggestion makes Jaskier’s chewing slow, but not stop. “You think so? Tastes fine to me,” he says through a mouthful. Then he swallows. “I’d have figured it was all that yellow bird slop making you sick. That can’t be good for you.”

Huh. It hadn’t occurred to him. Most of his thoughts slow to a stop before he can make sense of them, like they’re struggling through thick treacle. He starts to dig through his pack. The spring equinox brings with it a latent, ancient magic, a thing buried deep in the earth. It stands to reason that the cikavac may have tapped into it, befouling him in more ways than one. Of course it would be something stupid like this. If this was the result of something magical, the cure’s not going to be pretty, and if the damned cikavac ate the pouch with the last of his decoctions, as he soon discovers, then he’s shit out of luck. Geralt swears under his breath. He’ll likely just have to sweat it out, and he tells Jaskier as much.

“Mm. Not to worry, my friend. I’ll do the honors of fetching a bucket for you,” Jaskier says, before springing up to do just that. He doesn’t listen to Geralt’s protests that he’s not _that_ kind of sick.

There’s a waterskin, half-full at the least, and Geralt downs most of it in a single greedy pull. Then he pours the rest over his head and his face. The coolness comes as a relief. It doesn’t last long, however. Geralt’s eyes flicker, sluggish, across each point of interest in the room. The colorful patterns of their threadbare blankets. The iron loops intermittently spaced on the walls. The small bowl of cherries on the upturned basin, out of season and yet still as red and swollen as the day they were picked. He eats one, intrigued. They must have been preserved in some kind of liqueur, he can tell by their sharp, overly-sweet taste.

Into his palm, he spits out the stem that remains. Another thought passes by. This one, however, lodges itself firmly in him. He plucks another cherry from the bowl.

The door re-opens. “You would not _believe_ how hard it is to find a single blasted bucket around here,” Jaskier groans.

“Jaskier.”

“Hm?” He checks the door closed with his hip. Geralt’s eyes fixate on the motion.

“That trick, earlier,” he starts. His tongue lies heavy in his mouth.

“What about it? I know it’s not your strong suit, but you’ll have to use your words, Geralt,” says Jaskier. His voice is light, and he smirks at Geralt, insufferable and smug.

Geralt is struck by the sudden urge to wipe it off. That’s not unusual. He clings to that thought like a drowning man to a rope, ignoring all the others that clamor hungrily in the back of his mind. “Show it to me,” he rasps, encroaching on Jaskier’s personal space.

“Awfully demanding, aren’t you? You’re lucky that flattery will get you everywhere. Hang on, let me do something with this—”

“No,” Geralt spits out. Instead, he raises the cherry to Jaskier’s lips. Jaskier starts to say something, but Geralt interrupts him by popping it into his open, waiting mouth, watching as his eyes widen with surprise. A feral satisfaction curls in the pit of Geralt’s stomach.

Wordlessly, his mouth closes around Geralt’s fingers. Geralt slips them back out. After a few moments of working his jaw, Jaskier swallows again, throat bobbing, and sticks out his tongue to reveal the stem tied in a neat knot. Then he lets it drop to the floor.

“This is the part where people usually compliment my skills,” Jaskier says unsteadily, and the way his voice trembles is so unfamiliar to Geralt that he stumbles backwards as a mounting horror looms over him.

There’s something wrong with him. Something strange, something dangerous. He’s got to get it under control before he does something even more reckless and impulsive. Geralt of Rivia isn’t known for those things, and he’ll be damned before he ruins that reputation.

* * *

“Isn’t this a bit… overkill?”

“No.” Geralt’s voice is as hard and cold as the manacles he holds out, expectant, like he’s serious about this whole thing. “Just shut up and put them on.”

Jaskier raises his eyebrows, mildly offended. “Haven’t you ever heard that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar?”

“Old wives’ tale. You catch the most flies with horse shit,” Geralt says flatly.

Pleasant. And, Jaskier supposes, befitting the mulish expression he’s sporting. He doesn’t like proving Geralt right, but he does anyway after Geralt gives the cuffs an insistent shake. They lie heavy in his hands. The metal’s a mottled yellow-green, and he can’t help but wonder aloud about it as Geralt places his hands behind his back.

“Dimeritium,” Geralt grunts. “It’s used to hold mages. Blocks their magic. It should be able to keep this under control.”

The manacles close solidly around his wrists, and he gives them an experimental tug. Seems to hold up. Jaskier purses his lips in thought. “Right. And what is ‘this’, exactly? You’ve not been very forthcoming about whatever’s going on with you. I mean, more than usual,” he probes.

Geralt sits on one of the beds and leans back against the wall. “It’s—” He cuts himself off, then tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I’m sick.”

“Not sure about you, Geralt, but when I’m feeling under the weather I prefer a warm bowl of soup and some good old-fashioned bed rest. Not, er, this.” Jaskier gestures to Geralt’s whole situation.

He stays silent, however. His chest rises and falls with more force than Jaskier thinks it should. He’s used to Geralt at rest being something akin to a statue, his breath carefully measured and his blood sluggish. The ideal of self-control. Must be a witcher thing. After all, that’s what they undergo all that training for, right? Jaskier wouldn’t be able to stand it, himself.

“If you won’t tell me, I’ll just start guessing,” Jaskier says, a hand on his hip.

“Don’t.”

“You don’t think it’s some kind of werewolf flu, do you? The moon is awfully full tonight. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Geralt stares. “For fuck’s sake, Jaskier, it’s not the _werewolf flu_.”

“Fair enough. I figured you might be immune to that sort of thing, anyway.” He can see Geralt’s jaw grinding, and he takes a bit of perverse satisfaction from it, the corners of his mouth turning up. “Doesn’t seem to be doing you much good.”

“I already told you, it’s some kind of magic. Not a disease,” Geralt tells him again.

Jaskier snorts. “Could’ve fooled me. I mean, look at you, you look like you’re burning up.” Just to confirm it, he lays the back of his hand on Geralt’s sweaty forehead, and, yes, he is just as warm as Jaskier suspects, but the moment he does so, Geralt snaps—

_“Don’t touch me!”_

He jerks back on reflex. Geralt bares his teeth like a dog.

“Okay, okay. No touching,” Jaskier says slowly. He raises his hands into the air to prove it, careful not to make any sudden movements.

A tension stretches out between them. Jaskier keeps his eyes fixed on Geralt; more specifically, on his arms, where veins bulge and muscles strain against his bonds. Suddenly those handcuffs didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.

“You need to get out of here, Jaskier,” Geralt forces out through his teeth. “Take my coinpurse. Get another room. It’s not safe here.”

That, more than anything, cements the idea that there’s something wrong with Geralt. Geralt wouldn’t dream of wasting that kind of money on him if he was in his right mind. “Don’t be ridiculous. What if this gets worse? You’ll be stuck in here without anyone to help you, and trust me, it’ll be humiliating when you can’t even get a drink of water without knocking something over. Or spilling it all over yourself. I know from experience.”

Geralt lets out a rough bark that might have been a laugh, under ordinary circumstances. “I’m the last person you need to worry about,” he says.

“I don’t get to worry about you very much, so I’m going to enjoy it, thanks,” Jaskier sniffs. He makes himself good and comfortable on the bed opposite.

Geralt’s been refusing to look at him, so it catches him by surprise when their eyes meet head-on again. His pupils are blown out like Jaskier’s never seen before. All the more reason to be concerned.

“If I tell you what’s going on, will you get out. Please.”

It’s lacking the characteristic inflection that questions normally have, but Jaskier doesn’t push. Frankly, he’s much too curious to give Geralt a hard time about it like he ordinarily would. He leans forward on his knees, saying, “If you insist.”

There’s a drawn-out moment of silence, in which time Geralt opens his mouth, then closes it again, then wets his lips with his tongue. After a few aborted attempts, he admits, “Aphrodisiacs aren’t supposed to work on witchers. Milk and honey, fermented in a cikavac’s stomach… seems like it’s one of the few that does.”

A laugh bursts up from Jaskier’s throat, unbidden. “Geralt. Geralt of Rivia. You’re telling me that you went through all of this fuss because you— because you wanted to lie with someone? That’s it?”

And now Geralt’s back to staring at the ceiling again. If Jaskier didn’t know any better, he’d say Geralt was embarrassed. Ha! How the tables turn. He laughs again, wiping a mirthful tear from his eye.

“That’s an easy fix. You could have your pick of half the women in this village—”

“No!” Geralt snarls.

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t— want that,” he says, stilted.

“Melitele’s tits,” Jaskier mutters under his breath. Then he asks, “What _do_ you want, Geralt?”

Geralt’s a man of few words at the best of times, but this struggle of his to form coherent words and thoughts is new. And fascinating. His jaw tenses, furiously working, before he spits out at last, “Damn it, Jaskier, it’s you! I’m trying not to fuck you into the ground!”

Jaskier’s mouth hangs open, caught as unawares by this as if Geralt had slapped him. “You’re having me on,” he protests. As he says this, however, he realizes he’s trying to convince himself of that more than he is Geralt.

The cuffs rattle behind Geralt. “Does this look like a joke to you?”

Jaskier processes this. He fails at it, and then he tries again, and it all clicks into place. Geralt glaring at him from across the tavern. No - at those chatty girls he was trying to charm. Was he _jealous?_ And that thing with the cherries, well, he hadn’t known what to make of that, but now he does, and it makes a roiling heat bubble up under his skin. His face prickles with it.

His voice breaks when he says, “No… No, I suppose not. It would be an awful lot of effort to go to for a joke, anyway. Would be getting weird at this point. I mean, you’re plenty weird as it is, but not…” Jaskier swallows hard to shut himself up, and catches Geralt’s eyes lowering. Staring at his neck. Like the bob of his throat is a sumptuous cut of meat and Geralt is a starved and bony animal. A giddy sweat breaks out under his collar.

Okay. He reassesses the situation and takes a deep breath, feeling the fabric of his doublet shift with it. Geralt’s before him, as bound and helpless as he’ll ever be, and Jaskier realizes that he’s the one in control of this situation right now. He could leave the room and leave Geralt to his own devices and come back in the morning, where he’ll likely have tried to fuck a hole into the mattress in lieu of anything else. Jaskier suppresses a laugh. It is intensely difficult.

Or, he reasons, he could have a little fun with this. Yes. The idea grows all the more appealing as Jaskier stands in uncharacteristic silence, content to observe as Geralt’s steely nerves fray under his scrutiny. Geralt’s arms and thighs twitch from the strain of keeping himself together. Of trying not to reach out and touch. A smile, devious and ugly, blooms.

“You want _me_ , do you? Out of all the lords and ladies here? That’s surprising, Geralt,” Jaskier says, voice lilting.

“We’re not talking about this,” grunts Geralt. It seems to take him some effort.

“Why not? I’m just curious. How am I supposed to help you out if you won’t even tell me what you want?”

Geralt goes completely still.

“In case I’m not making this obvious enough,” he clarifies, stepping forward until he’s just outside the open V-shape of Geralt’s legs, “I’m offering. So stop beating yourself up about it, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

He continues to avoid facing Jaskier head-on, so Jaskier tuts, then grabs him under the chin with a gentle hand and tilts his face up to look at him properly. Geralt goes along with it. He’s never gone along with any of Jaskier’s plans so easily. Geralt’s pulse roars to life under his touch.

“Unless you still want me to leave?” Jaskier taunts.

That gets Geralt to shake his head, a fierce ‘no’ if Jaskier’s ever seen one.

“Go on, then. Tell me.” He runs his thumb over the solid line of Geralt’s jaw, marveling in how it tenses, then relaxes.

“Jaskier,” Geralt chokes out, leaning into his hand. “Don’t fuck with me. If you’re not serious—”

“Oh, I’m very serious, Geralt. Deadly. You think I haven’t thought about this kind of thing since— Gods, since the first time I laid eyes on you? And here I thought you were just trying to preserve my dignity,” Jaskier tells him.

He groans like he’s, what, embarrassed? Disgusted with himself? There’s no room for that in whatever tenuous thing is unfolding between them. Jaskier moves his thumb from Geralt’s jaw to his bottom lip just as Geralt mouths around it, “Keep going.”

The power he wields now rushes to his head, bold and heady. Jaskier pushes in further, pressing the pad of his thumb into Geralt’s mouth to feel the sharp outline of his teeth. Geralt lets it fall open at the slightest pressure. He could bite down if he wanted, and he could probably take a few of Jaskier’s fingers with him for good measure. But he doesn’t. He lets Jaskier probe the soft insides of his mouth with another finger, then another, tongue lapping at the dewy, translucent web of flesh between them.

Jaskier shivers, a bolt of arousal crackling through him. It startles him into yanking his hand back. Adrenaline spikes, kidneys jerking low in response and a chill flashing up the back of his neck - he’s certain, just for a moment, that Geralt will follow him with a snap of his jaws, and _poof,_ there go his fingers. But he worries for nothing. Geralt merely looks up at him, brow furrowed in confusion. _Good boy,_ Jaskier thinks, surprising himself.

“Good,” he breathes, echoing his thoughts.

He nearly wipes his hand on his breeches, but these are particularly fine ones, wine-red with a golden brocade and a thread count that’s to die for, and he thinks better of it. Instead, Jaskier pushes. He threads his hand, still wet with spit, through Geralt’s silver hair, gentle at first before he grabs a hank of it and tightens his fist just enough for Geralt to feel the tension. Then he pulls, forcing Geralt’s head to tilt back and baring the rugged line of his throat. Geralt doesn’t protest. Jaskier rewards him with a smile, less cruel than the last.

“You know, I might prefer you like this,” Jaskier says. He encroaches further upon Geralt’s space, tilting his head so that their mouths are close, their lips are so close that speaking a word aloud might cause them to touch. Geralt’s breath comes out like a bellows, hot and furious. He strains upward. Jaskier doesn’t let him close the distance, however. “Is this what it feels like to be you? Bullying, just because you know you can get away with it? I’m beginning to see the appeal.”

A low, angry sound rumbles in Geralt’s throat. “You’re getting off on this,” he growls.

“Is that not the point?” he murmurs into Geralt’s ear, relishing in the shiver it wrings from him.

“ _I_ should be the one getting you off. If you’d just— fucking let me—”

Jaskier clicks his tongue. “Not yet. Odds are pretty good that you’re going to snap my neck once this is all out of your system, so I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Geralt says quickly.

“No?”

“No, it’s,” he pauses to wet his lips, “it’s fine. Keep going.”

Well, he doesn’t need to be told twice. Jaskier’s lips graze the shell of his ear, then the soft patch of skin just under the lobe. His free hand strokes the broad underside of that sharply-angled jaw, pressing into hard bone and its vulnerable fleshy underside. He’s watched Geralt stab many a man in this exact spot. Splitting their tongues from underneath, blood burbling from between their lips where moments before an insult had done the same. The significance of Geralt’s easy offering is not lost upon him.

One of his knees comes to rest between Geralt’s legs to help him balance. Instead of backing away to offer him more room, Geralt bucks his hips forward, making Jaskier feel his hardness against his lower thigh. Was that all it took? A few teasing words and a couple of fingers in his mouth? He’s _desperate,_ isn’t he. Jaskier almost pities him.

Finally, Jaskier drifts back to his mouth, parted from the harshness of his breathing. All things considered, Geralt’s been a wonderful sport thus far, and that deserves a reward. Jaskier gifts it to him. A kiss, starting as the faintest brush of lips against one another, then another, then another still. That low rumbling vibrates all the way through him. Jaskier tests the waters with a slip of tongue, and Geralt meets him eagerly in turn.

When Jaskier pulls away to catch his breath, Geralt buries his face in his neck as best he can and inhales, deep. Then he mumbles against the crook of it, “Smells good. Really good.”

“It’s— it’s an Ofieri perfume. I picked it up from a merchant, back in Novigrad,” he says, having to concentrate to get the words out right.

“That’s not it,” Geralt insists. “S’you. Your scent. You smell like…” He trails off, and his tongue, broad and slick, traces a vein beating an insistent rhythm on Jaskier’s neck. Then he continues, voice ragged, “Like prey.”

Jaskier’s heart skips a beat. He’d hardly guessed that would have a _smell,_ although Jaskier supposes that if anyone could sniff that one out, it would be a witcher in an aphrodisiac’s thrall. Sharp teeth grazing his throat make him stumble forward. He’s— he’s losing his grip on the situation. On Geralt. _That won’t do,_ he thinks wildly, so he releases his hold on Geralt’s hair and uses both hands to shove at his chest, an obvious invitation to fall backwards onto the bed. Under ordinary circumstances, Jaskier couldn’t hope to make Geralt budge even if he put all his muscle into it. But these are no ordinary circumstances, and Geralt does as Jaskier’s hands command.

Now Jaskier hovers over him, subsuming Geralt in his long cast shadow. His eyes are dark and wide, illuminated only by trace flickering of the firelight. Jaskier slings his legs over Geralt’s hips, and his thighs stretch wide over him, like he’s straddling a tree trunk. Geralt’s so firm and unshakable that he might as well be one.

“That’s better,” says Jaskier.

He works the buttons of his doublet open, starting with the small studs at his wrists, and observes Geralt’s eyes honing in on the motion. Interesting. Jaskier bends his hand back further to reveal the bare skin of his wrist as he does; Geralt twitches minutely under him in response. Then he repeats the process with his other wrist.

“What are you doing,” Geralt demands hotly. “You’re taking too long.”

“Bossy, aren’t you? That might get your way on any other day, but don’t forget, Geralt - I’m the one who’s in charge right now. And if you don’t behave, I’ll just get up and leave you here. Is that what you want?”

Another shake of the head.

“It would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it? Having nothing but a straw mattress to rut against? Instead of,” Jaskier pauses to inhale, hands thumbing open the saffron-threaded buttons at his throat, “a nice, warm body? Like your dear bard’s, for instance?”

That gets Geralt’s hips to jerk upwards. His head thumps back against the bed, and he swears aloud. At this angle, it’s easy to see where Geralt’s tackle strains against the front of his breeches, and it takes considerable restraint on Jaskier’s part not to rock his hips against it. He has to remind himself that Geralt’s not earned it yet. But at least he’s behaving. For the most part, anyway. His hands, bound as they are, must be itching to touch.

One by one, Jaskier threads buttons out of their holes, and a bead of sweat trickles down Geralt’s temple. A sliver of goose-pimpled flesh expands from Jaskier’s throat down to his chest. A bright white axe cleaving him in twain, deliberately slow, just to watch Geralt squirm against his bonds. Geralt’s gaze is as focused as a hound dog’s on a rabbit in its sights.

After what seems like hours, Jaskier shrugs out of his doublet, then his vest. His own chest heaves and prickles with sweat. The anticipation’s working him into a fine lather.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, a touch hoarse. He licks his lips again, his hunger palpable.

Jaskier shifts on Geralt’s lap, and Geralt groans when the bulge in his own trousers brushes against him. “Yes, Geralt?”

“Stop jerking me around,” he snarls. “I can _feel_ you!”

“And? Were you surprised? Did you forget that I’m a willing and eager participant here?” Jaskier jabs back. The smile’s hard to keep off his face for long. He braces a hand on Geralt’s sweat-slick abdomen, then grinds their hips together in earnest.

Geralt rocks up to meet him with equal force. He’s— he’s bigger in every possible way, even in this, but the thought is far from emasculating. It gets him hot, a flush creeping up his belly. He’s not a small man by any means, but his hand, fingers spread as wide as they’ll go, appears dwarfed by the breadth of Geralt’s stomach. Jaskier digs the tips of his fingers into hard, scarred flesh.

“How long have you been thinking about me like this?” Jaskier asks, quiet and breathless. His thumb splays into the valley of Geralt’s hipbone. There, he traces the edge of a thick, corded scar, a rictus grin of serrated teeth that might be older than Jaskier himself.

When Geralt doesn’t answer immediately, Jaskier goads him, “Go on, don’t be shy. You were doing so good for me, Geralt. Talk to me.”

Geralt’s brainpower visibly reroutes itself from his nethers to the bard atop them. “I don’t know,” he says at last. His voice comes out like it’s squeezed between grindstones. “A while.”

“Oh? So this isn’t a new thing? Curious, really - _ah_ \- curious!” Jaskier’s head drops from its previous proud position, less concerned with maintaining dominance than with chasing that friction.

A guttural sound escapes Geralt, and Jaskier’s ears burn with it. “More,” he rasps. He cants his hips upward again, this time with enough force to knock Jaskier off-kilter.

“What was that?”

“You— damn it, Jaskier, you heard me!”

He slows to a stop and removes his hands from Geralt. The manacles rattle in frustration, the metal straining and whining ominously. “I don’t know if I did,” Jaskier sniffs. “Use your words and ask me. _Politely_. I’m aware that’s a novel concept for you, but we’re all learning something new tonight, aren’t we? I think you can figure it out.”

There’s a moment where the only sound that passes between them is that of their heavy breathing, a quiet standstill that Jaskier has the utmost confidence of winning. He’s known men like this before. Men he could have eating from the palm of his hand. All he has to do is find the right buttons to push, like those found on a noble’s clever little puzzle box. That’s what Geralt is at heart, isn’t he? Impenetrable on the outside, an artful mess of springs and tension and intricately-slotted pieces on the inside.

He pushes just a little further. He straightens himself and makes like he’s about to stand.

“Wait,” comes Geralt’s voice in a rush, “Don’t leave yet. I'm…” His eyes dart back and forth, the whites of them wide and clearly visible. Jaskier stills until he forces out the last word, abandoning his prior train of thought, “Please.”

“Good boy,” Jaskier says softly. If Geralt were an ordinary man, he likely wouldn’t have heard it, but the way the tension melts from his shoulders suggests otherwise. He undoes the clasp of his breeches and pulls himself out, still achingly hard. Then he does the same for Geralt.

The skin there is soft and supple, a pleasant contrast to its stiffness and its bulk. Jaskier slathers his palm in spit and holds him loosely in his fingers. Geralt’s cock jumps in his hand. When he lines them up together, man to man, Geralt snarls something into the open air that sounds like a sibilant _yes_. His hand’s not quite big enough to encase the both of them fully, but he makes do, and thrusts forward into his own grip.

Geralt’s head falls back, eyes winched shut. The tendons and veins in his arms pop out in stark relief. Jaskier can’t help himself - a nasal moan crawls out from him. He fucks his hand slowly, mouth parted on a sigh, and keeps his eyes on the slide of their glans in and out of his fist. It’s obscene. Like watching himself slip in and out of some fair maiden’s mouth. But this might be better, Jaskier supposes. Their rhythm is sluggish, asynchronous, with Geralt arching into his hand gracelessly. Like this, he can feel Geralt’s steady pulse directly against his member, and the friction is sublime.

“Geralt,” he groans, persona flagging under a thick haze of arousal, “Geralt, I want—”

“Say it.”

Jaskier curses. Metal groans underneath him. “I want you to— gods above, what was it you said? You wanted to fuck me into the ground?”

His whole body jerks harder than before, and that whine grows and hisses until it pops, an abrupt pinging, and Geralt's arms fly apart without warning. Jaskier looks down - the thin links connecting the dimeritium cuffs are nowhere to be seen, having been pulled to their limits and flung apart. He stops moving and blinks. Geralt does, too.

“Oh,” Jaskier says, stupidly. “Huh.” That seems… bad.

* * *

Geralt lifts his hands up to inspect the metal on his wrists. Blood rushes to them, cold and tingling. The gears in his brain struggle to turn in the fog - they must have been made for mages with spindly arms and unpredictable magics, not witchers. He looks back at Jaskier. He’s flushed, damp with sweat. The soft curve of his stomach is sinuous and organic and suddenly available for him to touch. His head spins with possibility.

Jaskier says something, but the words themselves don’t register. All Geralt notices is the way his tongue darts out to wet his lips, slick and pink. He should… He should listen. Geralt makes a valiant attempt at it, but he’s sitting up and grabbing Jaskier’s face before anything gets through to him. And then he’s kissing him, finally, like he’s going to eat Jaskier alive out of sheer desperation. Jaskier makes a startled sound into his mouth.

Good. _Good_. Geralt invades Jaskier’s mouth with his tongue, a vulgar and imperfect imitation of what he’s been envisioning for hours, hours. What’s been lingering in the back of his mind for much longer than that, only creeping out of the dark on rare occasions, in the liminal space between dusk and dawn. When his mental defenses are at their lowest. Jaskier’s hands unfurl from where they’re jammed awkwardly against his chest. Then they’re back in his hair again, blunt fingernails scratching against Geralt’s scalp. Contentedness trickles down from that spot like warm water in a bath.

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. There’s so much to explore that at first he doesn’t know where to start. So Geralt starts with a palm at Jaskier’s jaw, another at his throat. Then down to his heaving chest, feeling his heart thud like a rabbit’s. Hunger creeps into his belly and into his scrabbling fingers.

Abruptly, Jaskier tears himself away. “Hold on,” he gasps, pressing his forehead against Geralt’s, “Geralt, I was trying to—”

“What?”

“Quit interrupting me! I was trying to say something.”

“Don’t care,” rumbles Geralt, displeased with this turn of events. In a single fluid movement, Geralt rolls Jaskier onto his back, and he hits the mattress with a muffled thump. Better. Where he belongs.

Jaskier slaps at his arm. “You should care! I’m trying to make this good for both of us. For goodness’ sake, I’m your friend, aren’t I?”

Fair point. Geralt grunts in acknowledgment. “Fine. What?”

“Admit it. I want to hear you say it,” Jaskier tells him.

“Say what?”

“Admit that I’m your friend. Actually, that I’m your only friend, thank you very much.”

He buries a groan into his palm.

“What?! This is important - and so is the other thing I was trying to say!”

Somehow, Jaskier being an irritating little gnat only gets him harder. Like it’s some kind of learned response now. That should be concerning. All that’s on Geralt’s mind, however, is pawing at Jaskier’s stomach and hips. So he runs his fingers down those supple planes, watches Jaskier shiver and sputter indignantly, and asks, “Do you do this with all your friends?”

“Not really a— a ‘friends’ thing, no,” Jaskier admits, “but that’s beside the point. Just humor me.”

Geralt dips lower. Jaskier’s cock twitches, and distantly Geralt senses saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth. “Okay,” he says. “You’re my friend. You’re the only human I’ve known who’s stupid enough to be friends with a witcher. And the only one who’s stupid enough to let one bugger you, too.”

“Oh, I doubt that very much,” huffs Jaskier. “You’re terrible at this. Do you really seduce the womenfolk with that kind of mouth?”

Wisely, Geralt doesn’t respond to that.

Jaskier flings a dramatic arm over his eyes. “I can’t believe this. I’m really going to let you have me and you can’t even admit that you _like_ me.”

“Damn it, Jaskier, I like you just fine,” Geralt snaps. To prove his point, he takes Jaskier’s draped arm in his hand and rights it so that it’s pressed against the bed instead, fingers tangled together. Now it’s his form occluding the light, long hair hanging loosely over his shoulders, engulfing Jaskier in its totality. Jaskier stares up at him. Then he swallows. The sight of his throat bobbing makes Geralt’s fingers clench.

“Glad we got that sorted out,” he says, voice faint.

“I’m,” starts Geralt, struggling through the haze to find the right words, “I’m losing it. Can’t think straight. You should leave. Unless you want…”

That startles a laugh out of Jaskier. “Erm, yes, I do? What, you can’t smell it on me? Some witcher you are.”

He sucks in a rattling breath, and he doesn’t have the mental fortitude to explain that it doesn't work that way. Sure, he could pick up the scent of sex and sweat dripping off Jaskier’s skin from a hundred paces, but so could any other common bastard. Jaskier reeks of it. But that’s not much different from the smell of it when Jaskier’s shuffling discreetly (or not so discreetly) under his bedding on any other night. This, here and now, is the sort of thing where hands and words are more effective tools.

Speaking of which, Geralt moves his hands to rest under the hollow of Jaskier’s ribs, thumbs pressed under the bone. Squeezing. Palpating. His head follows in short order, and Geralt nips at the soft, yielding flesh of his sides, squeezing tighter when he hears Jaskier panting. White streaks gather under his fingernails. Then they blossom into vivid red.

Jaskier hisses out some epithet that Geralt doesn’t catch, but he does feel Jaskier’s ware twitch and bob against his scapula. He drags his tongue along the dip of a hipbone, pulling down Jaskier’s trousers for better access. He wants to see more. Touch more. To eat Jaskier alive. There’s salt on his tongue, salt and something slightly bitter. Like soap. Jaskier’s clean and fresh and he wants to— he wants to mark him with teeth, mark him with seed, rub it in until there’s no getting Geralt out of his skin. Geralt’s hands tremble with it. They’re everywhere, everywhere he can possibly reach.

Then they’re taking Jaskier by the hips and flipping him unceremoniously onto his front. Two dimples dot his back just above his waistband. In better times, Geralt would remember what they’re called, but he’s more enamored with the muscles in Jaskier’s back and shoulders, surprisingly defined. They shift and arch under his touch.

Jaskier props himself up on an elbow and cranes his neck to look behind him. “You should really warn a person when you’re going to—” He doesn’t get very far before Geralt shoves him back down, buckling him, and he lets out an indignant yelp. “Damn it! What are you, a barbarian?”

No time for that. Akathisia suffuses through Geralt like a poison, spurring him to yank down Jaskier’s breeches just past the swell of his ass. He’s hard, unceasingly hard, and he wants to take and take and plow Jaskier into the into the mattress until there's nothing left of him and he rubs himself roughly between those cheeks until he feels more slapping at his arm.

“Geralt! You big oaf, listen to me! This is the other thing!” Geralt doesn’t like that astringent twang in his voice, so he halts himself. It takes a mighty effort. “You can’t just— you can’t just have your way with me like that. I’m no woman, it doesn’t work like that. Grab my satchel, there, near the bedpost - one of the salves in there should do,” Jaskier says, muffled somewhat by the crook of his arm. When Geralt does as he’s asked, Jaskier raises his head again.

“This?”

“Yes. Good. Give it to me and I can, er, prepare myself,” he tells Geralt.

The gears in Geralt’s head turn slowly until they click at last, and he figures out what it is Jaskier’s being so euphemistic about. “No,” he grunts. “I’ll do it.”

“I don’t know if that’s wise.”

“Think we’re past the point of— of wisdom,” Geralt manages to get out. He slicks up his fingers with something that resembles a facial cream, vaguely floral in scent. Was this its intended purpose? Does Jaskier keep himself prepared for this kind of thing? Another wave of jealousy crests and crashes over him, and he spreads Jaskier apart to work a finger inside. Then another, when Jaskier’s so receptive to the first, muscles tensing then relaxing in equal measure.

Geralt drinks up Jaskier’s sighs and harried breaths. When he crooks his fingers just right, fucks him in a crude likeness of the real thing, those sighs pitch lower into a groan that rumbles all the way through Jaskier’s body. Static races down Geralt’s spine, white-hot. A third stretches him wide enough that Jaskier pleads with him to get on with it, already, and who is he to disobey? The beast in his belly commands him to do the same.

He removes his fingers with a disquieting sound, slicks himself up, then presses himself back against Jaskier’s entrance. There’s an initial resistance. But then Jaskier pushes back against him, and before Geralt can think about it he’s buried inside, nearly to the hilt. The tightness— the _heat_ — Geralt clutches at Jaskier’s hips, nails digging bruised half-circles into his skin, and snarls wordlessly.

“Gods— Geralt!” Jaskier’s hand clutches at the threadbare blanket under him.

Geralt draws back, just to watch the slide and stretch of him, until he’s on the verge of slipping out. Then he drives himself back inside Jaskier in one swift motion. Slow, then hard. And again. And again. With each thrust, Jaskier lets out a desperate, stilted sound, and Geralt wants to hear it again, and again. He likes Jaskier like this, he realizes. Words stolen from the wordsmith, all his charisma and craftiness snatched from him like so much gold from an unsuspecting pocket. He took them, milk and honey and all, greedy thing. Hungry thing. Geralt could drink and drink and it would never be enough.

Jaskier’s knees slide and give way. Geralt slips out on a poorly-aimed thrust. Not good. “Up,” growls Geralt, clapping his ass with an open palm for emphasis.

“D’you ever ask nicely for anything,” Jaskier moans into the crook of his elbow. But he does as he’s told anyway, raising his hips with trembling knees and burying his face in the straw pillow before him. “You should be thankful that I’m so— _ah_ — generous!” His voice cracks on the last syllable as Geralt pushes in again.

“Not generous.” Geralt leans forward, spreads a hand between Jaskier’s shoulder blades to force his torso as flat against the bed as he’s willing to take. It turns out that’s quite a lot. “You’re… easy.”

A nasal whine rises up from under him. “Easy, he says,” mumbles Jaskier, “like you didn’t— didn’t beg to have me.” His words are punctuated by noises, filthy ones, sharp hitches of breath. He’s still talking. _How is he still talking?_

“You’ll need to try ha-harder than that if you really want to shut me up,” he says, syllables coming out in tune with their staccato rhythm. Geralt didn’t know he’d said that aloud.

If it’s a challenge he’s offering, Geralt’s game - he increases his pace until the slap of his hips against Jaskier’s rear matches the frenetic beat of the folk music leaching into their room from outside. Ichor surges through his veins. He can feel the dancing, the stomping of hooves, the clapping. It pounds and pounds in his head at a fever pitch. Something sings in his ears, a primeval chant. The sound of bloodlust and ritual.

“Yes, oh— _Geralt_ — right there,” Jaskier cries out, all the louder when Geralt angles him just right. Geralt leans in further, practically draping himself over Jaskier’s back, legs braced in animalistic rut.

Take. Take. The drums pound. Meltwater gushes from the mountains, a fern unfurls in the dead of winter, wet wood crackles and spits and erupts into Jarilo’s vivacious fire. Marzanna lives, and dies, and lives again.

“Good boy,” Geralt rumbles into Jaskier’s ear, dark vindication twisting his mouth into a smirk. Jaskier strips himself raw with an arm full of pins-and-needles and spends himself with a wail, names and pleas melting into incomprehensible melange. Geralt’s vision narrows down to a single point. He’s slick and warm and tight as a vice and he’s begging Geralt to fill him and the wolf howls in victory, biting down on Jaskier’s neck as Geralt comes.

Time slows at last behind his eyelids. Tension snaps like a bowstring pulled too taut, and Geralt goes limp, remaining buried in Jaskier as the full weight of him collapses. He breathes in the sour scent at the base of Jaskier’s neck. Vetiver. Sulfur. Salt. Geralt. A deep comfort lodges itself in the pit of his stomach.

If it were up to him, he’d stay there for ages, just like that, but soon - too soon - Jaskier weakly claps the side of his arms again. “Geroff me,” he slurs, barely audible. Geralt groans, but pulls himself out for good and rolls over to free Jaskier. “You’re too heavy.”

Geralt can’t muster up a response. There’s nothing but pleasant vacantness in his mind. Instead, he slings an arm over Jaskier and pulls him in tight. Something about letting him go just yet sits wrongly with him.

“Better? Not going to… tear anybody’s heads off now?” Jaskier punctuates this with a yawn. It’s contagious. Geralt shakes his head ‘no’. Not now. Doesn’t care.

Distantly, he thinks he hears Jaskier murmur something about getting cleaned off, but exhaustion drapes itself over him like a thick snow and the allure of sleep overtakes him.

* * *

He wakes the next day with a vicious headache. And nothing in his arms. Bright light filters through thin gaps in the wooden walls. Geralt slowly pushes himself to an upright position, worry seeding itself in his gut. Where’d Jaskier get to? Was it - this - whatever this was, too much? He glances down at his hands, remembers the picture-perfect impression of them in bruises, and his stomach turns. Too much.

This troublesome train of thought is interrupted by the sound of the door creaking open, and Jaskier walking in, mostly clothed, a pitcher of water in hand. “Oh, you’re up,” he says by way of greeting. There’s a smirk on his face. “You were sleeping like the dead. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you might have been.”

“What,” Geralt croaks, groggy.

“I brought you something to drink,” says Jaskier, ignoring him.

When offered, he takes the pitcher gratefully and downs the whole thing in record time. It’s an immense relief. So too is Jaskier’s presence, in and of itself. Jaskier seems a little impressed. The entire situation feels almost normal, except for the distinct presence of a limp in Jaskier’s step and the faint red impressions on his neck. Teeth. His teeth. Geralt’s stomach does something unpleasant again.

“Are you,” Geralt starts, then fails to find the right words. _Okay? Hurt? Angry?_ Well, the last one, probably not, judging by the way Jaskier rests a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m fine. Really. Delighted, actually. I was worried that you were going to be all brooding and self-destructive about last night. You’re no fun like that, you know?”

“I don’t brood,” he says defensively.

“Liar.”

“I don’t.”

“That’s not going to work on me. I’ve seen you. Brooding.” He takes a seat next to Geralt on the straw mattress, and tucks some of his hair behind his ear. “But really, I want to ask… what are you going to do from here? You’re going to have just as hard a time getting rid of me as before, unfortunately for you, and you’re definitely going to have to let me ride on Roach for a few days, what with the state you’ve put me in, but I know this throws a spanner into—”

Geralt gets him to stop rambling by taking Jaskier’s hand in one of his own. His thumb rubs against the pulse point in his wrist. Words aren’t his strong suit, so he doesn’t bother with them, and hopes that this will suffice to say that it’s fine. Whatever this is. They’ll figure it out.

The sun beams down on their necks as they make for the next town, turning the recent snow into muddy slush. He lets Jaskier sit on Roach, and tells him to hang on tight as they set a blistering pace through the thatched hills and valleys, oases of green and brown threading through receding white. Onward. Ever onward.

**Author's Note:**

> huge thanks to my long-suffering best bud and roommate for all the beta reading and ceaseless encouragement. also, shoutouts to all the people who offered feedback and good vibes and all that other nice stuff as i was slowly working my way thru this. you the real ones
> 
> catch me on [tumblr](https://tigerdrop.tumblr.com/) if you dig my writing/want to give me big kisses


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